Hawaii - day 3

Up bright and early this morning as we were off to do the Diamond Head hike - a steep hike up the Diamond Head crater!
So here we are at the entrance to the crater all geared up with our new running shoes that we bought yesterday LOL.

I was a bit worried about doing this as it is quite steep and lots of stairs but I have been doing some stair runs in my training the last few weeks to get my lungs a bit fitter.
This was the view from the car park, you can't see it in the pic but from where we were standing we could see the track zigzagging up the side of the mountain and it was a bit daunting.

 Here are some photos taken on the way up....

So we zig zagged up the side of the crater then we hit these 74 stairs!! And let me tell you these were no where near as bad as the next set of stairs!

 At the top of the stairs there was a tunnel you went through and  I thought "oh a reprieve from the stairs" but the tunnel was at an incline as well.

Then at the end of the tunnel you stop to catch up breath and this is what greets you......

99 extremely steep narrow steps!!! We waited a bit then headed up, unfortunately I couldn't do it all in one go and had to stop about 3/4 of the way up, but just enough to catch my breath as it was very narrow and there were lots of people there. So we got to the top and into the bunker then there was the next staircase...........a spiral metal staircase!!!

Up we go again!!
At the top you come out into this concrete bunker where you have to crawl through a small opening to get out to the lookout.

But the views........oh so worth the effort!!!

It was sooo worth it.  Here is a diagram I found on the net of the hike.

So we had all this done by 10am so headed back down to near the bus stop to the farmers market across the road at the community college. Will do a part 2 to this day. 

Hawaii - Day 2

This day was SHOPPING day!!!
We headed out to the Waikele outlet centre on a coach shuttle, took about an hour and a half to get there after it did the rounds of all the pick up points in Waikiki then the drive out to Waikele. 

This was a great centre with lots of great shops. Across the road there was another complex with Kmart, Old Navy, Sport Authority and Lowes ( a home improvement store). 
So we headed over there first and checked out Kmart, pretty much the same standard as ours, just on a bigger scale. I then went into the Sports Authority while Craig checked out Office Max. I thought I had hit the jackpot in the Sport store. It was like our Rebel sports on steroids!!! But at half the price of Rebel. We bought a ton of brand name fitness clothes at minimum 50% less than what we pay here. And then some things were on special as well! We got a load of clothes for Trainer Tim and a few things for us as well. We also got Tim and us a pair each of Nike Free sport shoes for $90 each  - they are $160 here. We really boosted the US economy at this store LOL


We noticed on our walk over to this centre that there was a Chili's restaurant, so we just had to go there for lunch. We used to have Chili's here but they closed down and we all really liked their food. We took some photos to show the boys that the decor was the same as it used to be here, right down to the tiled tables! And the nachos were just as delicious as ever!!

After lunch we headed over to the main outlet centre and did a bit more damage over there - Sketchers shoes was first stop, then there was Guess, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Coach........and much much more............. LOL

We got back to our hotel about 7.30pm so was a looong day shopping. 

On Friday night in our hotel they have a dinner and Hawaiian entertainment show but we were too late getting back to go to that, but we were able to watch a bit of the entertainment from the main bar area of the restaurant. That was really good and then later the Hilton next door put on a fireworks show on the beach so everyone heads out to the back deck of the hotel to watch that. It was such a great atmosphere, everyone was enjoying themselves and just kicking back. 

Headed up to bed after dinner as we had an early morning the next day to do the Diamond Head Hike.

Hawaii - day 1

Well my plan of doing a blog each night of our holiday didn't happen LOL. We were on the go all day and usually back at the hotel too late for me to put anything down that would make any sense !!
These posts might be pretty detailed as I am putting this all down so I remember it all myself!
So here it all is.


We had a pretty good flight over, I managed to sleep for a couple of hours thanks to the travel sickness tablets!
We arrived in sunny Honolulu at about 7.45 am and got to our hotel about 9am. We had  private condo rental in a hotel  so we were able to check into our room straight away which was nice.

 

So we dumped our luggage  and after checking out the great room and fantastic view headed out to find some breakfast. IHOP across the street, was pretty good. Stopped at an infamous ABC store on the way back to hotel to stock up some groceries and snacks. We were getting pretty sleepy by now so set the alarm and allowed ourselves a 2 hour nap.

 We then headed down the beach into Waikiki, this was probably about 20 minutes, 

then had a lovely dinner in Dukes on the beach. The food was delicious and we had a great table with a view out to the ocean.

 Walked back on the beach all the way back to our hotel and then crashed.

Sewing Bag - almost finished!

Well I have almost finished the bag, but the base is a real pain to sew in so didn't have the time to devote to that the last few days. I have sewed a little bit to hold it in place and stuck a velcro patch on the back to hold it in place a bit more LOL until I can get the time to fix it properly.
But here it is, ready to be packed with my stitching to take on the plane.

You can see here the base piece is not sewn in properly but at least it holds its shape...

 And I have put this cute little owl charm on the zip.....from Khris ( I think it was meant to go on my phone but never did LOL)

Well, tomorrow we are heading to Hawaii for 10 nights, am pretty well packed and ready to go........just need to put in some last minute things. I am going for a long walk in the morning, then will head to the airport mid afternoon.
Stay tuned for updates from warm Hawaii!!!

Hugs,
Anita

Bits of sewing

Since I have last blogged I have had a couple of sewing days with the girls. One day I was very unfocussed and couldn't decide which project to do so these are the ones I dabbled with. A tablerunner, a bag and a sewing bag...

The next time I finished this tablerunner for a gift.

I also pieced the panels for this gorgeous sewing bag from Anni Downs new book.

I have almost finished the bag, just have to finish hand sewing some of the lining. I am hoping to get it finished to take some stitching with me on the plane.
Here is a pic of Glenda & Maria my sewing buddies (and Aqua buddies!!) with their latest creations.
Glenda made a chenille quilt for her youngest grandson...

and Maria was crocheting  an edging on some cuddly baby blankets.

The monster quilt

Back in July some of my bloggy friends were off to Nundle for a quilting retreat with Kerry at Cottage on the Hill. I had to skip this year  as we have been saving up for our trip to Hawaii. So the weekend they went I was feeling a bit down so I did some sewing myself and I put my quilt on my bed from last years retreat. Now only a very small part of the binding has been sewn down but I decided to put it on the bed anyway to cheer myself up LOL

I call it the monster quilt as it is huge! We only have a double bed, maybe I should have told Kerry that when I said I wanted a quilt for my bed LOL

I'll be back at retreat next year girls!!!!

xxx

Oh gee, it has been so long since I blogged, blogger has changed !!! Will have to try to see how this new set up works.
I have been a very slack blogger - just read my last post and it was in June, and I promised some pics of our weekend in the city.
So I will try to catch up LOL

We stayed in Darling Harbour, where we went to the craft show. We did tons of walking, was really good and the weather was fantastic for the middle of winter. So on the Saturday we walked up to The Rocks and wandered around the markets. Was a great atmosphere there. There were these great food stalls and this was a huge pot of meatballs simmering!

Then there was the cupcake display!!

This row of buildings are old ships stores that are now restaurants.

 This not a very good pic of me LOL, I was actually sick most of the weekend with a shocking head cold that got worse as the weekend progressed. We sat for a while here in the sun.

On the Sunday we headed on the ferry over to Watsons Bay for a lovey seafood lunch. We had a good walk here too. It was a glorious day on the harbour and it was great to see so many families out enjoying time together.

So that was our weekend waaaay back in June!!
I have a few more posts coming from the sewing that I have been doing.
I am now on 3 weeks holidays from work and on Thursday this week we are heading to Hawaii!!! Sooo looking forward to that!!!